Invitation to Miss Deakin to celebrate the opening of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia

Framed invitation to Miss Deakin (Ivy) to an evening reception to meet the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York to celebrate the opening of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia at the Exhibition Buildings, 9 May 1901.

Invitation to Miss Deakin to the opening of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia

Framed invitation to Miss Deakin (Ivy) to the opening of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia at the exhibition Buildings, 9 May 1901.

Creating a dialogue across time in Athens : the new Acropolis museum and the Parthenon

A visit to the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece, in late June 2010 set in train a number of questions and inspired a research project to begin to unravel something of the complex relationship between ancient and modern architecture on the Athenian Acropolis. Research was guided by the question: how does the contemporary museum, designed by Swiss born architect Bernard Tschumi in collaboration with local Greek architect Michalis Photiadis relate to the ancient Acropolis and the fifth century BC Parthenon, whose sculptures it was to house? A critical literature review was augmented by design analysis and field experience. This paper documents the resulting critical thematic investigations of the Parthenon, the Acropolis and the New Museum through siting, materiality and light, alignment, visual connections, through exploitation of the unique Attic light, orchestrated movement and considered juxtapositions. Research has revealed that Tschumi’s deliberate strategy of creating a dialogue between his building and the ancient monuments holds the key to his design intent, to creatively exploring contemporary architecture at the edge of such a physically and culturally dominant ancient plateau.

Between Genet’s Bordello and holy communion : Lacan on comedy in seminar V

This article aalytically reconstructs Lacan's scattered remarks on comedy in Seminar V, turning around his reading of Genet's play the Bordello and Aristophanes' ancient comedies.

Star struck

With poems ranging from the confessional to the mock-autobiographical, from imagism to a strange storytelling, from the comic and satirical to the plangent and disturbing, Star Struck startles us with the many faces of lyric poetry.This book of poems by the award-winning poet David McCooey is made up of four sections. The first documents an alienating encounter with a life-threatening illness. The second plays out an unforgettable obsession with darkness and light. The third brings together popular music and the ancient literary mode of the pastoral. In this highly original sequence we find, among other things, Bob Dylan singing Virgil, Joni Mitchell reflecting on life in Laurel Canyon, a lab monkey pondering the sound of music, and a bitter, surreal rewriting of ‘Down Under’ for our times. In the final section, narrative poetry is cast in an intensely new and uncanny light.

Sea-level changes and palaeo-ranges: reconstruction of ancient shorelines and river drainages and the phylogeography of the Australian land crayfish Engaeus sericatus Clark (Decapoda: Parastacidae )

Historical sea levels have been influential in shaping the phylogeography of freshwater-limited taxa via palaeodrainage and palaeoshoreline connections. In this study, we demonstrate an approach to phylogeographic analysis incorporating historical sea-level information in a nested clade phylogeographic analysis (NCPA) framework, using burrowing freshwater crayfish as the model organism. Our study area focuses on the Bass Strait region of southeastern Australia, which is marine region encompassing a shallow seabed that has emerged as a land bridge during glacial cycles connecting mainland Australia and Tasmania. Bathymetric data were analysed using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to delineate a palaeodrainage model when the palaeocoastline was 150 m below present-day sea level. Such sea levels occurred at least twice in the past 500 000 years, perhaps more often or of larger magnitude within the last 10 million years, linking Victoria and Tasmania. Inter-locality distance measures confined to the palaeodrainage network were incorporated into an NCPA of crayfish (Engaeus sericatus Clark 1936) mitochondrial 16S rDNA haplotypes. The results were then compared to NCPAs using present-day river drainages and traditional great-circle distance measures. NCPA inferences were cross-examined using frequentist and Bayesian procedures in the context of geomorphological and historical sea-level data. We found distribution of present-day genetic variation in E. sericatus to be partly explained not only by connectivity through palaeodrainages but also via present-day drainages or overland (great circle) routes. We recommend that future studies consider all three of these distance measures, especially for studies of coastally distributed species.

Evolution of lactation : ancient origin and extreme adaptations of the lactation system

Lactation, an important characteristic of mammalian reproduction, has evolved by exploiting a diversity of strategies across mammals. Comparative genomics and transcriptomics experiments have now allowed a more in-depth analysis of the molecular evolution of lactation. Milk cell and mammary gland genomic studies have started to reveal conserved milk proteins and other components of the lactation system of monotreme, marsupial, and eutherian lineages. These analyses confirm the ancient origin of the lactation system and provide useful insight into the function of specific milk proteins in the control of lactation. These studies also illuminate the role of milk in the regulation of growth and development of the young beyond simple nutritive aspects.

The rise of ancient China : fragmentation and amalgamation

This book examines the source of Chinese civilization, foundations of traditional Chinese society and early patterns of power transition. It engages readers in a search for a broad understanding of China's traditional culture and the enduring legacies of the past-in-the-present. It questions the conventional view about China's past, be that of a Confucian, a Communist or a Western ethnocentric historiographer. Most theories concerning the history of China postulate a central culture based on the Yellow River valley and radiating out into the vast areas of what we know as China. Informed by the latest archaeological discoveries, the author points out an alternative view on formation and development of Chinese civilization. Exploring the social and political upheavals that characterized the continuous disintegration and annexation in the 1st millennium BC, the author offers a unique account of the process of periodic fragmentation and amalgamation. Though presented for specialists in the field, virtually every page of this book is intelligible to the lay person, opening a window for anyone interested in the subject to look at this ancient culture from a new angle.

Water in the Indic Traditions

The essay critically discusses the predominant role played by water in the lives of people from Vedic times to the present day, in the Hindu world. A number of ceremonies both happy or auspicious-making and secular have been associated with water. Several hymns of the Vedas, Brāhmanas, Mahābhārata, Āgamic and Purānic texts are drawn upon to bring out the legends and myths, and genuine beliefs, connected with water that underscore the sacred and profane, purificatory, healing and resuscitating dimensions of water. The essay treats readers to many ancient motifs concerning the pervasive value and utility of water. These comprise, variously, sacrifice, fertility rites, water-medium birth, divine metamorphosis, self-conceiving cosmic birth, totemism life-cycle rites, sanctifications, consecration and installation of icons and edifices, food rituals, monsoon rites, to pacifications, possession and exorcism, death, after-life and rebirth rituals. Reference is also made to the ecology of water resources, the economy of water scarcity, ‘war-wars’ or water imperialism, and water justice in the socio-political arenas of post independent India, in a rapidly liberalising and globalising world. In that regard practical applications of the knowledge-base are explored through the work of NGOs and Water Swamis in the subcontinent.

Learning from sustainable landscapes of death in Bali : landscape planning and Tri Hita Karana

Landscape planning in many countries is predicated upon on fulfilling the functions for human living objectives. Many land use practices have been plotted for living, busines~, trading, industrial, farming as well as providing places for dead people primarily through cemeteries. Research in Palm Beach County, FL, has demonstrated the need to plan for 30 years of demand of land use functions to service death (Coutts, Basmaj ian et al. 20 I I). Coutts et al assert that planners are required and responsible for the planning of funeral necessities. Therefore, the protection of landscapes of death is an important consideration in the planning of landscapes. Bali is popular with its beautiful landscape, hospitality, and traditional architecture as demonstrating the integrity between human, environment and God, as expressed in the Balinese Tri Hita Karana concept. Balinese commemorate life from birth to death through their traditional ceremonies which informs their traditional cultural landscape. One of the most important landscapes, which cannot be separated fi·om Balinese life are graveyards which are used for deceased ceremonies. This landscape is an integral part of traditional village patterns across Bali. Culturally, Balinese people have their own traditional cremation ceremony which is call the Ngaben Ceremony. The Ceremony takes place in graveyards and thereupon ashes are placed in the sea waters surrounding Bali. An interesting point of planning in Bali is how to enable eco-friendly interment extensions to villages. This is occurring because of the increasing number of corpses that require cremation thus necessitating no accretions in land provision of graveyards. This research investigates the landscape of death in Bali expressed in its traditional values in the area of planning which implicate sustainable environments and land conservation topics. Other functions of graveyards, as noted by Strangstad ( 1988), include ceremonial and their role as educational tools for history lessons, art, sociology, geology, English lessons, as well as for scavenger hunts.

The complete fool: Insights and trajectories from an ancient path

This study presents a novel and accompanying exegesis which explore the fool behind the Fool by stripping away his usual costume and arenas of power and folly to expose an essence – an impulse of potentiality – that helps explain the Fool’s perpetuity and argues his critical significance as a catalyst for creative thinking.

Review of Pat Jalland's 'Changing way of death in twentieth century Australia: war, medicine and the funeral business'

Tanja Luckins of La Trobe University reviews Changing Ways of Death in Twentieth Century Australia: War, Medicine and the Funeral Business, by Pat Jalland. (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press; 2006)